Our jail system should serve justice, not convenience

Teriyona Winton who is charged with murder remains in limbo between adult facilities amid arguments over solitary confinement and where to properly house children accused of adults crimes. Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward said he has two bad choices for housing the teen — Shelby County’s Jail East or the Tennessee Prison For Women in Nashville.(Photo: Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

We make our world more complicated than it needs to be by wasting time and resources trying to solve precisely the wrong problems.

One example is the recent legal battle over whether a 16-year-old girl charged with murder in Shelby County should be detained at Shelby County Jail East or sent to an adult prison 200 miles away.

This is a serious case with a tragic loss of life involved. Teriyona Winton was 15 when she was arrested and charged with killing 17-year-old Deago Brown in Binghamton last year.

After a hearing at Juvenile Court, the girl was transferred to the adult system to be tried as an adult.

County Sheriff Bill Oldham determined that his office could not provide proper care for the girl. He asked a Criminal Court judge to transfer her to the State Department of Corrections in Nashville.

The girl was housed 200 miles from her family in an adult prison in Nashville. She was isolated and essentially held in solitary confinement much of the time.

Attorneys for the girl objected to these conditions. They pointed out that Shelby County male juveniles transferred to be tried as adults are housed right here in Shelby County and are not held in solitary confinement.

After getting no cooperation from the county attorney, the attorneys for the 16-year-old girl asked Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward to reverse his order transferring the girl to Nashville. Last week, Ward ordered that the girl should be returned to Jail East until her trial.

Below are some key facts to remember:

The 16-year-old girl has not been tried nor convicted of this crime at this time.

Male juveniles in Shelby County transferred to be tried as adults are housed by our sheriff in Shelby County, and not kept in isolation or solitary confinement

The Juvenile Court judge could have kept this girl in the Juvenile Detention Center in Shelby County, but he did not.

The sheriff receives in excess of $80 million a year from taxpayers to operate the jail yet claims he is unable to provide care for a single female juvenile.

The American Psychological Association has stated isolation and solitary confinement of juveniles is harmful, citing such risks as increased risk of self-mutilation and suicide, and exacerbation of the onset of pre-existing mental illnesses and trauma symptoms.

This brings me to the point that the county is focused on precisely the wrong problem. The real problems here are:

We spend over $80 million a year on a jail system that that cannot safely and sufficiently house one female juvenile.

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We sent a 16-year-old girl 200 miles away from any possible family support and hampered her access to her defense lawyers.

We put a 16-year-old in a position of isolation and solitary confinement fully aware of the harm it can cause.

We have a Juvenile Court that claims it cares for the children, is trauma-informed and supports rehabilitation, yet does nothing to prevent this 16-year-old from being placed in this situation.

Rather than resolve the real problems indicated by this case, our county government is trying to punt the 16-year-old girl 200 miles down the road so she becomes someone else’s problem.

That is the kind of decision making that led our jail to a federal court lawsuit and Department of Justice oversight that ultimately cost us close to 10 years and $25 million to resolve.

The strategy the county has followed in this case does nothing to correct the real problems. It simply diverts resources from the real problems and uses that money to pay lawyers to try to maintain a status quo that does nothing to improve our system or our community.

The real problems deserve our attention. They are solvable by improving our system so it does not discriminate and by insuring those in our custody are protected from harm rather than sent to environments that put them at risk.